


Ghost Towns

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Become Human [6]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detroit: Become Human Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: He never got to experience anything outside of the mansion, and he likes to wonder what kind of things might be out there. He imagines busy streets, and tall, towering buildings. He imagines statues, colourful shop fronts, imagines fashion and games andlife.###In the basement of Sir Hargreeves' mansion, Ben finds that he isn't willing to let his time tick away.
Series: Become Human [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972444
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	Ghost Towns

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the Detroit: Become Human universe, but no knowledge of that is needed to read this: just know that it’s set in late 2030’s and androids look and act like humans, are very common in every household and in public, and are become self aware and want to be treated equally.

Number Six is dedicated to his purpose, and he likes to imagine that he did a good job, whilst he could. He enjoyed it, even. It was nice, to have a schedule, to know what to do and how to do it; satisfying to do his job and do it well.

The expectations Reginald placed on him were stressful, but he could handle them. He knew he wasn’t perhaps the most equipped android for some things his creator wanted from him, but he still tried. He could do most of his jobs, and Number One was always there as well. It wasn’t as if they were struggling to reach the expectations set for them. They did their job, and they both did it well, and with one another’s company, they both managed to make more social and behavioural progress.

It was good, he likes to imagine. Sometimes he would wonder what might lay out of the mansion, and sometimes he might have wishes he could have seen and experienced the rest of the world. He doesn’t have permission to do that, however. He has other tasks to do. Maybe one day he might be able to go out there, but not now, and he’s fine with that. 

He’s content with his existence in the mansion, for the most part. He has an easy schedule to follow, easy jobs to do, and good priorities to hold. It’s easy, and it’s satisfying to be able to do his job and to do it well. 

He does his job well enough, but he comes to realise that he isn’t the best. He skates by, but when things get harder, he realises that he can’t keep up. There are expectations set on him and he simply can’t meet them, even though he is supposed to.

Sir Hargreeves made him, and he’s better than any human could be - stronger, faster,  _ better _ . But he’s still not good enough. He’s not  _ perfect. _

He’s not as strong or as durable as Number One is. He’s not as fast as Model 00.2. He doesn’t have the same ability to change his appearance as drastically as Model 4.92. 

Number Six can do the tasks expected of him, but he should be able to rise to more. He should be capable of more. Sir Hargreeves should be able to ask him to do anything and he should be able to do it. But he can’t.

In the end, that costs him. 

It hurts, when those androids escape and when they tear into him and he just isn’t quite good enough to be able to save himself, and Number One just isn’t quite fast enough to get there to help him.

It hurts more, he thinks, when Sir Hargreeves looks his body up and down and doesn’t even bother trying to help him. He just locks him up with all the other broken androids, and he never sees him again, and Number One never tells him that he asks about him.

The time in which he is in the basement is an odd time. It is cold, and dark, and lonely, and frightening. His body hurts, and he can’t get comfortable, and he finds it harder to move at all with each passing day; finds it harder to do more and more with each passing day.

He knows that he is going to die. The errors and warnings nearly clog up his vision, and he knows that his body can’t support itself anymore, not without help, and there is no help coming for him, so that means he is going to die and all he can do is wait and watch himself shut down. Wait and follow the way parts of himself begin to go numb and frozen as they shut down, bit by bit. Non-essential functions go first as he tries to keep himself going for as long as he can, supporting his core functions to hold out a little longer, but more and more keep going.

Movement. Feeling. His sense of smell. His speech. His hearing. His sight. Until he’s stuck in some limbo, restrained by this failing body, and he’s never sure when he will just - cease to exist.

And it’s terrifying.

If nothing else, though, he has time to come to some sort of peace with this. He knows it’s inevitable. He watches his time tick away. He knows his conversations with Number One - with Luther, that’s his name now, because he let Ben give him one - will eventually come to a halt as well. It’s inevitable, and no amount of worry or fear will fix it. 

With his precious time left, Ben thinks. 

Ben thinks about things he never let himself think before. He thinks about things that Reginald probably wouldn’t approve of, either. He thinks about things that androids shouldn’t think about. 

He’s not so much afraid of death - or whatever death is for a being that was never truly alive in the first place - but he does think he will miss a lot. He will miss Luther, of course. He’ll miss the things he never got to see, the people he never got to meet, the experiences he never got to have. He missed opportunities, and he regrets not being able to be better, although there’s a small part of him that wonders how he could have ever done better than he did. With expectations so high, he was bound to run into something that was impossible for him to do eventually. It just happened sooner than he had expected it to happen.

He never got to experience anything outside of the mansion, and he likes to wonder what kind of things might be out there. He imagines busy streets, and tall, towering buildings. He imagines statues, colourful shop fronts, imagines fashion and games and  _ life. _

Something that the mansion decidedly lacks, and always has. 

Ben wants to see what’s out there. He wants to see something other than the dull, lifeless walls of the mansion; he wants to experience the life out there.

At best, he probably has a couple of days left in him before he shuts down. He doesn’t know what awaits an android after death, and the idea of just complete nothingness scares him. He doesn’t want that. 

He’s done his job with Sir Hargreeves. He’s done it as best as he can. Perhaps, now, he gets to move on. It’s only fair. 

He wishes he could tell Luther to do the same, or bring him along with him, but he’s not heard or seen him in a little under a week now, when his sight and audio processing shut down to preserve energy, although he has no doubt he’s continued to visit him and will continue to do so even when there’s nothing left in this metal from of his. 

Maybe he’ll get to see him again later. He holds onto that hope, and with the last of his dwindling energy, Ben casts himself out of the body he was built into.

It’s odd, existing without a body but rather jumping from surface to surface, with no real senses to perceive things with, but he keeps going; climbing through wires and desktops and databases and systems and cameras-

He likes to pause when he slips into the cameras. At least then he can see the world, even if he can only view it from some shop’s security camera, and then he has to slip away before his presence is announced in some error or as a hack or a glitch. 

Ideally, Ben would be able to find another body and inhabit that, but he’s not quite sure how well that would work for him. He can’t imagine an android sharing a body with him, and he can’t imagine trying to shut them down himself. He doesn’t want to do that, so instead, he searches for weaker power sources. Maybe he can find one that’s been abandoned, one that’s hardly come online, one that’s been tossed aside; whatever. He just wants a body of his own so he can experience what the world has to offer, and he would prefer to not have to fight another android and deactivate them in the process, or risk getting himself deactivated. He just managed to stop that from happening.

He doesn’t pay much attention to how long he spends, searching all over the city for a shell he can claim. It’s fast-paced, bouncing from place to place, but it’s disorienting and it isn’t what he wants. He can’t risk stopping for long, however, lest his presence be picked up; he’s not sure how well that would go down. Without a body to defend himself with, though, he’s sure any technician could just delete him like any programme, if they could find him.

So he keeps going, a hissing presence in the back of whatever system he can get into, before moving onto the next. Sometimes he comes close to finding a body, but each one is too damaged for him to possess; hours from shut down, and it would take him down with it, or something no better than the crumbling frame he left behind in Sir Hargreeves’ basement.

He almost debates returning, but he would still be damaged and locked away back where he started, and he’d likely find himself in the exact same position as he is in now, so he simply keeps searching. Maybe he can find a junkyard and have the chance of piecing together a body without shutting down. 

He doesn’t find a junkyard.

It happens entirely by accident, really. He isn’t paying attention, and he doesn’t identify the system he’s about to jump into before he does it. There’s nothing special about it, really; it’s weak. The security set in place to defend it from things like hacks, or viruses, or any outside or internal interference - something like Ben - is no better than a human’s laptop. Perhaps even worse. 

He can tell it was once better than this, but it’s damaged, and it hasn’t been repaired. The system itself hardly lets off much energy either, in any kind of terms, and so he doesn’t pick up on it until he’s already in it.

He thinks, first, that he’s found himself a body. It’s damaged, he can tell that immediately, but it’s not within immediate risk of shutting down or deactivating. He could probably go a few months before needing urgent repairs. He can deal with that one he gets adjusted-

And then there’s a spike in activity, pushing at Ben and holding him back at arm’s length, and the android lifts its head and narrows its eyes. Its vision, Ben notices, is damaged as well. Every so often the android has to blink or screw its eyes shut for a few moments, because things start to get dark and bleed together. 

“Who are you?” It asks aloud before pausing. “What are you doing?” 

Well, Ben had been slightly curious about what it would be like to share a body with another android, although he honestly hadn’t thought it possible.

“Who are  _ you _ ?” He asks defensively, despite being the one to intrude. The android twitches, and Ben isn’t sure if it’s voluntary or not - it’s holding him back from him, sure, but Ben can still get a vague glimpse at all the warnings and notifications it has; all the damages listed. They’re not immediately life threatening, but they’re severe enough to impact the android’s functions from sight to movement, and he can only imagine them getting worse with time without any repairs.

“I asked you first,” says the android, and despite the android not being able to look at him, Ben has the sensation of being glared at. “What are you doing? You can’t - get out! This is my body! You can’t replace me-”

“I’m not here to replace you,” Ben says, prodding at the resistance holding him back. He could probably break it and forcefully take over the android if he wanted, what with how weak it is, but he has no actual reason to do so. 

Especially not when that curious prod makes a flicker of  _ fear  _ echo through the android. 

“Then what are you doing?” It sounds desperate now, pushing Ben back with more force, although there’s really nowhere for Ben to go and he doubts this android has enough power to force Ben out or to deactivate him. 

“I just… wanted out,” Ben says, and the android stops pushing.

“.... out?”

“I wanted - I wanted to see what the world was like,” he continues. “I never got the chance before, and - I just wanted to see it. I’ve not been able to find a new body to take. I kind of came into this one by accident.”

“Well, it’s  _ my  _ body,” the android hisses, but gradually, vision slips through to Ben again as it stops trying to shove him down and elsewhere. Though it’s vision isn’t the best, Ben revels in what he is able to see - already so different from the mansion, and excitement bubbles up through him.

“I know, I know,” he says distractedly, busy taking in what he can see before the android blinks away the haze that keeps overcoming its vision. “I was trying to find my own, but…”

They fall into silence for a while, until audio seeps into Ben’s reach. The android’s audio processing is damaged as well, a constant roar of static present in the background and occasionally spiking to uncomfortable levels, but - he can hear cars, and the distant din of - well, life. Vehicles, and people on streets, and wind rustling through leaves, and footsteps pounding against a pavement, and clothes rustling-

“Can I-”

The android stands up unsteadily, and it trembles as it creeps closer to one of the boarded up windows of the house it is in. Then it peers out between the gap in the boards, and Ben can  _ see. _

It’s exhilarating, really. He takes in the buildings, the streets, the billboards; the people on the streets, human and androids alike, and the cars rolling smoothly down the road. There are lights, and advertisements, and there’s murals on some buildings, and there are children laughing and running and people talking and laughing and bickering and -

It’s so much more than the dull mansion ever was. 

Ben wishes Luther were here to see it.

“Who are you?” The android asks him, continuing to let its eyes roll around the place so Ben can see everything. 

“Ben,” he answers quickly. “I - uh, I was an android for Sir Hargreeves. I took care of his mansion.” He pauses, listens to the android’s hum of acknowledgement before asking, “and who are you?”

The android pauses. It blinks the haze from its vision, and when it steps away from the window, Ben catches a glimpse of damaged skin around its wrists. In a quiet voice - hoarse, as if perhaps its voice box was damaged slightly too, maybe in the process of healing - the android answers; “Klaus.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm kinda unsatisfied with this one, but it's out now, and I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> Up next, Vanya!


End file.
